Lincolnshire County Council Pension Fund, Lincoln, England, hired Goodhart Partners and BlackRock to manage a combined £148 million ($235 million) bond portfolio, said Jo Ray, investment manager of the £1.1 billion fund.
Each firm will run £74 million.
Goodhart will manage an absolute-return strategy benchmarked to sterling three-month LIBOR. Investment consultant Hymans Robertson assisted with the search, which began in October.
BlackRock’s portfolio will track corporate, index-linked government and international bond indexes. The passive search was handled internally.
Both managers replace Aviva Investors, which was terminated because of the change in strategy, which was recommended by Hymans Robertson, Ms. Ray said.
“We felt we were getting benchmark performance, once you took fees into account, so we decided to move passive,” she said.
